As I’m doing my research for a term paper I have to do, I found this article called Sometimes in War, You Can Put A Price In A Life. The article talks about different ways and situations where prices are given to human life. If you would ask anyone rational the price of life they would say that it’s priceless. Apparently some people have thought of “great” ideas of giving price to life. In a certain case they considered $2,000 a reasonable price for Afghanistan’s life. This is a ridiculous low amount for a life, at least in my opinion. This price was given to people who got shot during the war but were innocent people. In the same scenario 50 other people got injured but received no money. It is true that war brings out the worse in people. Even people who die in airplane crashes get more money than this and those are really bad accidents. War is less than an accident. But this is just my opinion.
Yasser
I know it has been a long while since I post anything and specially comments about a movie but I think this one deserves the attention. Iron Man is officially one of the coolest movies of this year. The year is just starting and a lot of movies are looking good but this one is great so far. The action is great, it actually has a great story to it and they threw in some parts of humor in it so it doesn’t get boring at times. Casting did a great job, everyone did a great role and no extremely bad acting. I would totally recommend this movie for anyone, from girls to guys and all ages. Stay around at the end after the credits because there will be an extra small clip which might be a hint to the next release. I personally didn’t get much of the clip but its something related to the comic book.
Yasser
The United State’s is known as the fattest country in the world. And it is slowly getting to be known as one of the most uneducated countries (statistics, not calling people stupid). I came from Dominican Republic where my mom would cook almost every day a decent food (by decent I mean not full of fat). Every now and then we would go out to eat pizza and once in a blue we would stop at a McDonald or Burger King, we would usually prefer Taco Bell. But now I’m in college where there is no time to cook and everything needs to be rushed. What matters the most is what is open the latest and could deliver. Because of this I would say I eat at least twice or three times a week junk food, usually a cheeseburger (or double) and probably some bacon with it too. It is my fault that I am lazy and not go to the gym as often as I should. But I’m not overweight or in health problems, this is just my case and how I ended up eating more junk food than usually.
In school there is a “wide” selection of what we could eat which is usually divided into Grill (burgers, grilled chicken, anything else fried or very unhealthy with fries) , Deli (sandwiches which are good but a bit overpriced sometimes) , Pizza and Pasta, Others (Sushi once in a blue, Chinese food, Salads, etc.) The funny part is that the cheapest one is the least healthy one. But this year they have made great changes to the vending machines adding nutritional packages and labeling them so we could identify it. In my case I say I would average 1 slice of pizza a week, 2 or 3 burgers, 2 orders of fries, 2 or 3 grilled chicken sandwiches, 2 salads (new to my menu). This is minimum and a quick estimate. I don’t drink soda unless it’s free or I go out to eat to a fast food place.
All of this thinking comes from me watching Super Size Me, the very well known documentary about fast food and it’s impact in health (mainly McDonald). One of the most surprising things to me was learning that the can of lemonade brings just as much calories as a can of soda would. I would of thought well it’s juice, can’t be that bad…but I was wrong. I always find it weird that people never consider the portions they eat. The popular way of thinking is what is going to fill me up and it’s not too expensive. Specially in college life where every dollar matters. I’ve been successful on giving up soda, drink it very rarely. I’ve also managed to stop eating fries except for when I go Wendy’s or some other burger place because it’s part of the combo and it’s just easier to order. But now my new goal will be to give up Burgers in general. This might be one of the hardest challenges I have given myself. But I’m positive I will accomplish it one way or another. The best thing to do is drink water, all the time. The more water you drink the better you will be. It is the best way to clean your system.
Yasser
I finally got a new phone and it is exactly what I have been wanting for a while, a Blackberry Pearl. It is the nicest phone I have seen in a while and it is full of applications. Most PDA are a bit big but this one is the perfect size. I have also become a txting addict and the Pearl would help me with it’s bigger keyboard. It has a decent camera and battery life is great so far. I got it about two days ago so I am still playing around with it. And yes I did get the black one like the picture shows (not my phone in the picture). I love customizing my things so right now I am looking for websites where I can download free mp3 ringtones; if anyone knows of any please let me know. I know I can make them myself but I am a bit lazy about that right now. After I find a few nice ringtones for a few people who I deserve there own ringtone, I want to find some cool themes and maybe end up making my own theme. I also need to find a nice case to prevent scratches on the phone, have to treat my baby nice. It is light as a feather, sexy like a model and it does everything I need it to do and extra. I don’t have the internet and email functions because I can’t really pay for it, even though an uncle is paying for it right now (thank you very much). But if in the future I do need these functions then it will be available.
Yasser
Immigration and border patrol’s have now been more focused on catching illegal immigrants at bus stops and at train stations. Yesterday I witness the way they treat people who don’t seem to have the write papers to prove they are legal in the country. When I got in an Amtrak train, border patrol was checking for people and asked a women who looked Hispanic for her papers. Apparently she didn’t have the papers they needed to prove if she was legal or not so they made her get out of the train with her baby (a couple of months old) and was denied to make any calls until they took her to the station. A friend of mine commented that he also was victim of the “random” checkups and went through the same thing but at a bus stop and it was the same officer. I understand that they must ensure that people don’t get into the country illegally. What I’m not so sure about is the way they “randomly” select the people to check on. If you are Puerto Rican they could tell right away, at least in Rochester, so they wouldn’t bug you. But if you seem to be Hispanic and not from P.R. then you will be asked questions and be treated like you are the scum of the world. The least they could do is treat you well until proven guilty and even then you deserve to be treated as a regular person. The story sounds “normal” so far but what most people forget that Hispanics/Latinos are not the only illegal immigrants in this country. What about the Europeans and Asians that are illegal in this country? How many times do they get targeted? Are they ever in the news? It would be a lot harder to inspect illegal Europeans because you would probably have to stop every other white person and that would take forever. So why single out only the Hispanics?
On another note I was just told by a friend today that she was victim of racism at her job. A old lady (50’s-60’s) came into her job and was complaining about having a Puerto Rican help her out. She was complaining that she had left the other store because of the same reason and she apparently couldn’t find someone that was “American” to attend her. I’m not sure of how stupid this women was because if she would know better being American means being part of the American Continent. She must be following the old Monroe Doctrine that made Americans be Americans only if they are from America (that is, United States of America). My friend was in shock when to women was saying these things so she helped her out and after the customer left she went and told her manager what happened. I on the other hand would of had a big argument and not helped out this client for being such an ignorant and racist person. This is further and contemporary proof that racism is not a thing from the past, it is the present. It still exists in this new world.
Yasser
Update: Reuters.com is reporting that the major record labels have said that this information is false. They have not signed a contract with Qtrax but they were working together on beta testing. So now we would have to wait and see if any of the major record labels would actually sign the contract which we doubt. Why doesn’t each major record label run there own website/p2p and make their own profit ?
The new buzz
of the internet for today is a company named Qtrax which is going to offer free and legal music to download. It is going to work with p2p in a way that you don’t have to download any program, it runs of your browser. The great news about this is that all major record labels have signed an agreement so it is legal to download it from the website. It also offers more songs than iTunes and Amazon which is a great way to compete. Of course to every great story comes bad news. So far it is DRM wrapped, you need a specific player to listen to the music and even worse for most, it doesn’t work with your ipod. They say that they are working on it but until then I don’t see myself using this service. Mac users are also screwed because it only works for Windows at the moment but it is expected to be Mac compatible in March. I hope everything works out the way they plan it and that it will be free and legal, if it does these will be a great success.
Yasser
One of the biggest t.v. programs of the year is going to air on February 3rd. It is no lie that the Super Bowl is one of the most watch t.v. shows of the year, even people that don’t watch football love watching the Super Bowl. One of the greatest part of this event is there exciting new, funny, expensive commercials that air during breaks. This year the show is going to be transmitted by Fox News which is charging an all time record high of $2.7 million dollars for a 30-second commercial. Ticket sales to attend the Super Bowl will add up approximately $57.6 million this year. You can see the Super Bowl economy is a strong one and everyone seems to want a piece of that pie. Business owners try to make the best out of their places to try and get people to go to their event/party. This means they have deals on drinks, maybe free t-shirts or something else. It is also known as the # 1 day to buy snack foods so it is also a competition for the chips companies to offer the best deals or the most attracting bags. The Super Bowl Economy is without a doubt a great business day for many.
I found this great article in ITworld.com about the history of five generic domain names: milk.com , meat.com, music.com, eat.com and car.com . These would be names worth a lot in the domain real estate business but yet none of them started as what their name says, they were all geeky websites. It would be worth a lot owning one of these domains.
In this brave new Web 2.0 world, it’s almost a badge of honor to have a Web site name that only hints at what the user will find there (see Flickr) or is so opaque as to offer no clue at all as to what the Web site is about (see del.icio.us). It’s easy to forget the first Internet gold rush of the mid-to-late ’90s, when dot-com domain names based on ordinary (and, investors hoped, marketable) nouns and verbs were snapped up by hopeful companies from the humble geeks who had purchased them (often ironically) in the early ’90s. The weird and wooly history of the Web can best be traced through some of its most generic domains. Here’s a sampling that trace the arc from the geeks to the entrepreneurs and into a more staid corporate world.
Keep reading more…
The topic for discussion in my Intro to International Relations class was the United Nations. Most people know the name but know little about the organization itself. The definition according to Wikipedia is:
The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues. The UN was founded in 1945 to replace the League of Nations, in the hope that it would intervene in conflicts between states and thereby avoid war.
So the common knowledge about the U.N. is that they prevent wars and help out other countries. The truth is that they don’t do a very good job at it. And if you don’t agree with that then why was there Apartheid in South Africa for such a long time? Why is the current situation in Darfur still going on? Pick an issue and you will see that the U.N. has done little or nothing to solve this issue. But the question is, why doesn’t the U.N. work? It is a bunch of countries that gather and try to solve problems that other countries have. The important meeting where all the states get together, or all the members, is called the General Assembly. There everyone discusses topics and vote on what should/shouldn’t be done to bring peace and solve problems. What most people don’t know is that there is also a Security Council composed by 5 permanent members: China, United States, France, Russia and the United Kingdom. There is also 10 non-permanent members that rotate every year.
These five permanent members come from World War II, which is what made the United Nations exist. These five dominating countries have a great power. These five states have the power to Veto any proposal. You don’t need all five of them to veto, just one. Thus, if a proposal is given that doesn’t benefit any of the permanent members, one of them will most likely veto it in their personal interest. Meaning… nothing will ever be passed that doesn’t benefit or affects one of these states. If the U.N. would work better then there would be no permanent members, they should rotate the entire Security Council every year. Because these five countries are in charge of making these decisions before they reach the General Assembly, they will never have any repercussion from the U.N. This is a monopoly on an international level. Why doesn’t someone challenge the U.N. on this?
Yasser
The great thing about the internet is that when we want to learn how to do something we no longer need a book. We can always search for it online and hopefully find a good website that explains things slowly or at whatever speed you desire. Sometimes it is hard finding these websites that have How To’s but my favorite has always been About.com, they always seem to have the information I need for most non-technical stuff. But there is a lot of other websites that teach us how to build, write, do other things. TeacherTube is almost a new one that teaches us through videos. It is quicker than searching YouTube for videos. ReadWriteWeb has published a big list of sites that have tutorials and other How To’s. So next time you need to learn how to do something just go visit the list because it will probably be faster than searching through every website.
Yasser
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